The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) launched on January 25 a large-scale ground offensive in the vicinity of the northern city of Aleppo.
The army’s elite 4th Division is reportedly leading the offensive, that’s aimed at securing Aleppo’s city center. Hundreds of rocket attacks targeted the city over the last year, claiming the lives of dozens of civilians.
Military sources said the offensive is focused on the districts of al-Layramoun and Mount Shuayhina, which are located in the northwestern outskirt of Aleppo city.
Click to see full-size map. Source: (@Suriyakmaps) on Twitter.
Heavy clashes are being reported in the area, which is also being targeted by Syrian and Russian warplanes. However, no change in territory has been reported, so far.
In a message to the UN Secretary-General and President of the Security Council, Syria’s Foreign Ministry said that the new offensive in Aleppo and the operation in Idlib are a response to the “systematic crimes” of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies.
“The precise and well-studied military operations carried out by the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in Aleppo and Idlib come after the appeals from the Syrian citizens in these two governorates, and in response to the systematic crimes committed by the armed terrorist groups,” the letter reads.
The SAA resumed its large-scale operation in southeast Idlib a day earlier. The army captured several towns, villages and hilltops in the region.
The simultaneous operations in Idlib and Aleppo increase pressure on HTS and its allies. If government forces have enough means and measures to develop both the offensives, Idlib militants will have signifiant problems with repelling them.
Good news! It looks like SAA needs to send some of these things to terrorists in western Aleppo …
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Why? Because Fuck everything in that direction!
Hard to recycle alredady fired ones:)
It’s not hard to recycle jihadists. Chop them up finely and plough them into the fields. Leave the ground fallow for 3 months and then re-seed. Produce will only be suitable for animal feed however until the Wahabbi stain finally fades, so grow root veg for the first 2 years..
Russia must bring 10,000 battle tanks to do mop up work for the Idlib region; …AND the ROAD #7 Deir ez-Zur, Syria region, Euphrates River, etc.
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“Heavy clashes are being reported in the area, which is also being targeted by Syrian and Russian warplanes. However, no change in territory has been reported, so far.”
LOL, are we playing games again SF, did the Russians really assist the 4th division with air support, I must have missed it, I only noticed them assisting the 25th division. So we have the 4th division which is loyal to Iran in Aleppo, and we have the 25th division which is loyal to Russia and Syria in Idlib, both are elite divisions with access to the best training and equipment, so which one will do better. The Tigers are really good but most of the rest of their division aren’t so hot, they’ve been criticised for very poor performance on the battlefield, and that’s despite extremely heavy Russian air support, they probably wouldn’t be the favourites in any man’s betting game. The 4th division on the other hand are the elites of the elites, they’ve proven themselves on numerous occasions and have no weak links in their ranks, unlike the 25th division which is only really strong at the top, all it’s attachment troops are elite. So who do I think will do the best fighting and gain the most ground, the 25th or the 4th division, I’ve already said the 4th is by far the best fighting division, so does that mean I think they’ll do the best, no it doesn’t, I actually think they’re going to nothing but twiddle their thumbs, I think the 25th will do all the hard work and liberate more territory then the 4th will, way way more. Now when I say twiddle their thumbs I’m not being literal, what I mean is they’re going to do a deal with Turkey, and that deal will mean the 4th will be allowed to take back a small amount of territory to increase the buffer area marginally, and the designated terrorists like HTS and Al Nusra will be replaced by heavily vetted Turkish backed moderates like the SNA or SFL, not the FSA, and then we’ll hear both Turkey and Iran begging Russia for another ceasefire, that’s what I think will happen in Aleppo. To be fair Aleppo will be 10 times harder to liberate than Idlib will be, so even if the 25th was in Aleppo and the 4th was in Idlib, Aleppo will still put up far more resistance than Idlib will, and the fact it’s heavily populated makes things go 10 times slower than they would in a rural setting like Idlib, so I can’t really compare them anyway, just make predictions. The 25th division has more chance of doing the real damage, they have full Russian air support, unlike the 4th division which doesn’t enjoy the same luxury, they have the easier terrain to liberate, and they have a lots of support from the local population, which means less risk of harming civilians, so the 25th division should take back 10 to 20 times the amount of territory, and with less civilian casualties, how much territory that is I’m not sure, but I think it’ll be most of southern Idlib. Let’s see how well the Iranian pretty boys do when they have to fight the Turkish proxies, they haven’t fought each other for over 18 months now, maybe they’ll both be out of practise and too unfit to do much fighting at all, lets see what happens. I’ve been very critical of Putin’s constant pandering to Erdogan’s ceasefire demands lately, but I think we’ve seen an end to them now, Putin’s putting his reputation on the line by putting his golden boys at the spearhead of this new ground assault, so it seems he must be pretty determined to prove something, at least I’m hoping he is, and does.